Just How Bad Is Sugar For Your Heart And Body?

Sugar is important for us... in small doses.

SCOTT LEAR, THE CONVERSATION

19 FEB 2018

Still nibbling Valentine's Day goodies? Munching packaged cereals, pancakes or muffins for breakfast? Enjoying a lunch of processed meats and bread, sweetened pasta sauce, or even a salad drenched in dressing?

Sugar makes all of these foods delicious. It is also an important energy source for our bodies. It's what we use when we're doing vigorous activities and it's the primary source of fuel for our brain. We need it.

The problem is, many of us eat far too much sugar. And we eat it in its simplest, processed form.

This excess of sugar in our diets increases the risks of health conditions such as obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, atherosclerosis, high blood cholesterol and hypertension.

Our bodies are designed to digest sugar in its naturally occurring form found in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. In these foods simple sugar molecules are joined together in a chain.

Our small intestine cannot absorb sugar in the form of a carbohydrate chain (commonly known as starch), so these foods are slowly broken down, with one sugar molecule cleaved off at a time before it can be absorbed.

This is like taking a long train and removing one box car at a time.

When we eat sugar in its simplest form, such as sucrose (a combination of a glucose and fructose molecule), there is no chain to break down. So instead, a flood of sugar is released into the bloodstream all at once. We often feel this as an energy rush. (Jakob Suckale & Michele Solimena)

Insulin is then released to shuttle the glucose into our muscles, liver and other organs to be stored for later energy use.

This can leave us feeling lethargic and hungry after the spike in glucose in our blood, leading us to eat more calories than we need to, which in turn may increase our risk for obesity.

Insulin resistance to heart disease

There are many other ways in which a high sugar diet adversely effects our health.

As we have limited stores for glucose in our body, any extra gets converted to fat. Some of this fat circulates in our blood and interferes with the work of insulin leading to further increases in blood glucose levels.

If this continues over years, insulin begins to lose its effectiveness and blood glucose starts to rise, resulting in what's called insulin resistance and later to diabetes, another risk factor for heart disease.

The most common method used to date is the imposition of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) like soda pops and sport drinks. Mexico has already implemented such taxes to reduce consumption. The United Kingdom is introducing one in April 2018.

While the US has no national SSB tax, many cities have undertaken to implement one, such as Philadelphia and Berkeley. There is criticism though that people may just travel outside of that city to purchase the drinks at a lower, untaxed price.